WarbyPicus
patreon
Vol. 4 Chap. 23 The Limits of Empathy
🕑 Added 2023-12-06 17:00:06 +0000 UTCTruth was trying to connect some very random dots at speed. The picture he was making didn’t make a whole lot of sense to him. Anak and Sons were some kind of human-ish. Cousins of humanity as he generally understood the term. He was a little hazy on what exactly that meant.
Merkovah had played down their importance, but he could vividly remember Remu Anakson. More than two meters of slab muscle and the furious eyes of an emperor, all supported by Level Five cultivation. Truth would bet at least one of those levels was a body cultivation spell too.
Actually, no need to bet- he knew for a fact that they had body cultivation. One of the spells he recovered from Gullvar’s place was a modified body cultivation spell. The system couldn’t crack the other, but… odds were better than good it was related.
They were remainers. Holdouts. The Anak’s were clearly playing for the world after the collapse. But he couldn’t figure out what their angle was with MegaShroom. Definitionally, these pricks were good for nothing. In fact, they sucked value and goodness out of things. Their phony mushroom nonsense was especially toxic. People bought them instead of real medicine, and paid a fatal price for their faith in marketing.
Collapse… control… not entirely human but close enough… what was he missing? What would humans need post collapse? Organization, first and foremost if you were an empire builder. Then once you had people listening- shelter, water, food… material comforts? It starts getting a bit vague once you are past the whole “How to not die right this minute” stuff. Like… a latrine. Nobody ever thinks “I’m in an emergency situation. Where do I poop that won’t poison the water supply?”
<<Well, they do, but I take your point. Also you skipped right over the obvious- food. They might be bullshit as magical supplements, but mushrooms are food. And who knows, post collapse, maybe some of them could pass as medicine. I wouldn’t bet on it, but maybe. MegaShroom would certainly have the experience persuading people that it did.>>
Truth nodded along with that, then grinned slightly. Some mushrooms are hallucinogenic. What do you want to bet MegaShroom grows them for a certain, very select, clientele?
<<No bet. Ask the lawyer.>>
“Hey Ricardo, when did you get the Conference Room re-done?”
“About ten years ago.”
“Ah. How do you guys get your mushrooms? Contract farming?”
“Some of it.” Tony rolled his eyes. “I know everyone thinks the marketing is bullshit, and ok, maybe it can’t do everything it says on the label, but in terms of ingredients and quality, we really do put in the work. Most of it is grown in house, and most of it really is assayed by alchemists for purity and potency.”
“Right but… it’s potently doing nothing useful.” Truth looked dubious.
“We dispute that. And not legally relevant.”
“Seems relevant.” Truth fixed Ricardo with a look.
Most people would have considered the fact that they were handcuffed to a chair in front of someone who soloed their entire squad of paid killers almost instantly and completely unharmed, and backed down. Most people are never going to be General Counsel for a MLM.
“Megashroom products are manufactured and distributed under the laws of Jeon as Nutritional Supplements. As nutritional supplements are not regulated as medicine, they are held to the ordinary standard of consumer protection afforded to non-food, non-medicinal goods. Our belief in the efficacy of the product is entirely sufficient to defeat any claim of false advertising. Indeed, even suggesting as much could lead to serious legal consequences, young man, and filing a vexatious lawsuit could even result in jail time.” Ricardo glared at Truth.
<<I’m in love. I want to leave your body and go haunt him. The sheer, and I wish there was a better, less gross way to say this, but the sheer intestinal fortitude of the man is inspiring. Even now, his commitment to comprehensively sodomizing the people of this great nation remains pure and unshaken. It’s beautiful. Why aren’t you this pure, Truth? Why are you such a goddamn loser compared to this glorious beast of a man?>>
Please never call someone a glorious beast of a man ever again. Please and thank you.
<<No.>>
“Are you entirely clear on your odds of leaving this room alive, Rick?”
<<That’s Attorney Wu or Counselor to you, peasant!>>
“Decent, I expect. You took me alive for a reason, and I don’t believe it’s to enquire about our contractors.”
“You would be surprised.” Truth growled.
“What do you want, then? Not that I’m ungrateful. However, regardless of my… urgent need to renegotiate certain parts of my compensation package with the Board, I am still Megashroom’s attorney. I have a duty.”
<<Sheer class. This is the difference right here. You just kill people and break things. He’s spent an entire human lifetime clearing away legal obstacles to maximizing meatsack suffering. I bet you he’s known in Parliament. I bet he does in person lobbying, turning up with a briefcase full of wen and a bottle of something classy. He gets holiday cards from the President. Ask. I bet he does.>>
“You seem like the kind of person who gets holiday cards from the President.”
“Of Jeon? Each of the last four.” Ricardo smiled confidently.
<<I love Jeon so much. We MUST save it. And Ricardo Wu shall lead it to the glorious future its subjects deserve. President, no, GOD EMPEROR WU.>>
“Shame. I’m a rebel, here to topple the old order.”
“That’s nice.” Ricardo nodded politely. His eyes didn’t even flicker.
“Which means I’m co-opting Megashroom.”
“No, that won’t be happening.” Ricardo’s disagreement was polite but firm.
“A program you will be energetically supporting. Because I know some things you don’t, and once you do know them, you will see just how dumb your remaining “loyalty” to the company is. Specifically the notion that you can screw more money and benefits out of them.”
“I assure you, they will pay. And my physical security will be… much better ensured.” Ricardo had clearly forgotten the whole “handcuffed in front of a probable murderer” business for a moment.
“Yeah, no, let me explain a few things about what the next… call it a year… will look like. And the consequences for you personally.”
Truth laid it out, skipping the whole “soul mutilation and slow mind control” angle and leaned more on the “how exactly do you expect a central magical ledger to work when magic is disappearing?” issue.
“Oh God, you're one of them. A “peak magic” fr- guy. Listen. You are clearly a powerful, capable mage,” Ricardo dropped his voice into a soothing baritone. “A combat magus. A man of action. Not big on postgraduate education, am I right? Listen, as someone with a tertiary degree, I can flat out tell you that magic isn’t ending.”
Truth blinked at him. Of all the reactions to “The world is ending,” eye rolls were not on the “expected” list.
“I can see you are confused. Let me explain. Yes, there is a definite lowering of magic intensity. Yes, it will be disruptive to an extent. However, it is simply not possible for it to be connected to human activity.”
“It… absolutely is, though?”
“No, it isn’t.” Ricardo spoke with calm authority. “Think about it. The planet is constantly bombarded on all sides by cosmic rays. Each of the billions of stars is some stellar excellency, an Angel or Demon beyond our meager understanding. The closest of which, our tutelary spirit? Just its emanation into this universe is so vast, our planet could fit with it one million three hundred thousand times. One MILLION. THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND. Times.” Ricardo carefully enunciated.
“Now, you tell me. How, exactly, does anything we could possibly do on this planet impact the impossibly vast output of energy generated by that emanation? It can’t. And before you say something embarrassing about the nature of reality, you should probably know that geological records show that changes in cosmic ray intensity are perfectly natural and occur cyclically.”
“Because this planet is small, and there are billions of us, so if we keep doing dumb shit, bad things happen? Also I know of at least two major religions that believe God, specifically, is interfering with our ability to interact with cosmic rays?”
“Ah, Collapser, theological/social type. The rich did a bad thing, so all the bad things are their fault, and God agrees with you, so everyone is getting punished. Which proves you were right all along. Would it shock you to learn that it is more complicated than that?”
“No.” Truth was always ready to believe that things were more complicated than he wished. Although this fact seemed to throw Ricardo. It threw Tony too, who looked at him weirdly from across the desk.
“Really?”
“Most things are more complicated than you think, right? Why would I find that hard to believe?”
“Because… you rushed in here, broke the geas on Tammy-”
“Anthony! After all those lunches I bought you, too.”
“Daragah bought them for me. Daragah is an okay guy. You I don’t know, and don’t want to know.”
“Because you were going to eat me alive!”
“Oh boo hoo! I was geased too and you don’t hear me whining. Besides, don’t think I don’t know what you did to get the job. Who do you think gave you pricks cover all these years?”
“Making money for you! Making money for you! You assholes took fifty percent of the gross revenue, AND I could only buy products and marketing through you, health insurance through you, unemployment insurance, everything had to run through corporate so you could get your beaks wet.”
<<This. Is. The second best day ever.>>
What was the- The day you tried to kill me.
<<The day I tried to kill you, right. God that was satisfying. I see how mistaken I was now, of course, I was as lied to as you, but the emotional satisfaction is no less real.>>
Have I mentioned recently what a complete delight you are to have around?
<<Oh boo hoo. I was geased too and you don’t hear me whining. When you get right down to it, I was the real victim. I never got paid. I never got any benefits whatsoever from my unpaid labor. You, at least, got to live vicariously through your siblings.>>
Wait, I get my soul mutilated, and you, that mutilated bit of soul, are the real victim?
<<How am I not? I am a separate person with a separate identity. I suffered all the same mutilation and exploitation, without the meager benefits you got. And yet, amazingly enough, you manage to make it. All. About. You.>>
Can… can we revisit the subject of your brutal murder? I haven’t thought about it in a while, and I regret that. I feel like there was a missed opportunity for investigating how you could be made to suffer most. Maybe I could Cup-and-Knife you into your “correct” form, stitched to a sewer grub.
There was a pregnant pause. The argument between Ricardo and Tony was only getting more heated, but Truth and the System were both having a moment.
<<Uh. That. Um. Don’t try anything until you have a much better grasp of the spell.>>
Right. Yes. Obviously. Do you really think?
<<I think I am suddenly eager to learn just how the hell that weird ass spell works.>>
Yeah.
<<So… you are never going to get God Emperor Wu onboard. His whole life, his income, and his identity relies on you being wrong. Tony is as reliable as… I don’t have a good simile for this, the guy is going to flake and bolt the second you take your eyes off him. What’s your plan?>>
Staff is no use- go talk to the supervisor.
“Hey, Ricardo, sorry to cut in, where are those farms of yours?”
“Well, we grow mushrooms, so they are all grown indoors. We have a farm in this building, for example. Most of the building is used for cultivation, in fact.”
“Really?”
“Turned out, we didn’t need that much office space. But our founder got a fifty year lease on this place, so here we are. There are plenty of other farms too, of course.”
“Tony, add that to the data on the crystal.”
“Okay?”
“Great.” Truth dithered for half a second, sighed, and destroyed the attorney’s head with a swift palm strike.
“PRAEGER! Why?!” Tony tried to jump back, the chair slamming into the cheap wooden shelves behind the desk. He didn’t manage to get out of the chair until it bounced off the shelves, books falling down on him.
“Because I can’t think of a single good reason to keep him alive, and a lot of bad consequences from leaving him alive, and there will be no consequences whatsoever from killing him.” Truth said, reasonably. Or he thought it was reasonable. Tony turned paper white. Then turned and vomited.
“Oh God. Oh God. Please. Please don’t kill me. Please don’t kill me. Whatever you want. Just tell me. Whatever you want. Please. Please don’t kill me.”
Truth was stunned for a moment, then buried his face in his hands.
Right. He was the bad guy. Despite everything. Despite all the horrible things MegaShroom had done. Despite all the lives they ruined. The fact was that everyone in this room was recovering from mind control and a lifetime of damage. He was the bad guy. The monster of violence. He might have broken the geas, but he certainly wasn’t helping them.
“Tony?”
“Yes?”
“I am planning on letting you run. Let me be very clear on something. If they catch you, they will kill you in a way that makes being eaten alive look like mercy. They will be as brutal and humiliating as possible. They will involve your family, your pets, anyone and anything you ever cared about. Because they need it to hurt you on every level. You understand me?”
“Yes. God! Yes.”
“And you understand what happens if you go to the cops? Or try to call anyone, warn anyone?”
“Same thing. I get it.”
“Yeah. Do your best to flee the country. There is a lot of that right now. Shouldn’t be too hard. Don’t pack anything, don’t grab anything, just run your ass straight to the airport and book the next flight to anywhere not-here. Figure out the rest when you are in the air.
“I will do that. Exactly that.”
“Good. Because you won’t see me, but I will be following you, to see if you draw any more people hunting you down. And if you try anything, you end up like Tony. No warning. Just instant oblivion, and you find out what really happens next.”
There was a sudden smell of urine, and Tony frantically nodded.
“Good. Plenty of carpets outside. Hail one.” Tony grabbed his wallet and fled.
<<Going to follow him? That did actually sound like a good idea.>>
No point. I’d just kill more MegaShroom goons, assuming more got sent. No, time to talk to their real boss. Let’s go see our cousins. Those… strong sons of Amak.
Comments
dethrothes
The unexpected violence in this story always catches me off guard. I love it.
Wholly Anonymous
Oh god. I really wish this was less accurate as an allegory for climate change.
Chillitsagame
You know we still have no idea which theory of the loss of magic or God is right. If any of them are right. This could be a world were God doesn't exist, just happens to have angels and demons running around
Addicted_Reader
Amak group is certainly a consortium that has level 8 power. Also maybe actually independent of Starbrite, at least in that Starbrite can’t just control them directly.
